Medical care in association with procedures, medications, laboratory tests, evaluations, treatments, and assessments performed for a patient is oftentimes electronically documented by healthcare providers. In a clinical computing environment, a documentation section for recording medical data associated with a specific medical event may be established by a healthcare provider. The documentation section may include documentation elements and associated data fields for documenting medical events. Given the number of potential medical events, this section may include a vast number of medical elements and data fields. Presenting all of the possible combinations of medical elements and data fields to the clinician can lead to a cluttered and confusing interface thereby making it difficult to properly document the medical event. Further, some elements and data fields may be more relevant in documenting one type of medical event and less relevant in documenting a different type of medical event. However, the relevancy of the element to the specific medical event may not be apparent because the individual elements are not indicated or associated with one another.
Thus, it would be beneficial to have a system and method in a clinical computing environment that guides the clinician in completing the documentation of a medical event. Such guidance would minimize confusion about which medical documentation may be required and which documentation may be optional or not required at all. For example, it would be beneficial for a system to indicate what documentation is required for a specific medical event and display this information in a concise form. It would also be beneficial if the system and method provides the ability to see previously documented results in the context of the current documentation. This would provide initial guidance when documenting reoccurring medical events in a chronological format.